City releases long-awaited
Sunnyside Yard Master Plan
BY BILL PARRY
The city and Amtrak released
the long-awaited Sunnyside
Yard Master Plan Tuesday,
a detailed framework on
building new public transit
first and making all housing
affordable, with a focus
on New Yorkers earning less
than $50,000 a year. The ambitious
project would deck over
a large portion of the 180-acres
of active rail yard in order to
build a small city on top of it.
This plan is very different
from the $2.6 million feasibility
study that was released by
the city’s Economic Development
Corporation in Feb. 2017
that called for up to 24,000
units of housing in residential
towers as tall as 69 stories
with an overall cost of $16 to
$19 billion.
“After over a year of extensive
community engagements
and scores of conversation
with a wide range of stakeholders,
we developed a thoughtful
framework to guide development
at Sunnyside Yard for
generations to come,” Deputy
Mayor for Housing and Economic
Development Vicki
Been said. “We benefited
enormously from those discussions,
and the master plan
responds to the feedback by
putting neighborhood needs
for transit, affordable housing,
and open space first, to ensure
that future development is responsible,
inclusive and fair.”
The master plan calls for the
creation 100 percent affordable
housing with 12,000 homes, 60
acres of new open space, equitable
home ownership opportunities,
the long-sought
Sunnyside Station and necessary
infrastructure and other
public amenities on a publicly
controlled site equal in size to
Roosevelt Island or six times
the size of Hudson Yards.
“What we are doing is creating
public land like Battery
Park City that would support
buildings,” Director of Sunnyside
Yard Adam Grossman
Meagher said. “It’s a reflection
of the public process we were
engaged in and the urgent
need for affordable housing.”
Plans for the Sunnyside Yard development project now calls for transit options first and 100% affordability after a year of public
outreach. Courtesy of NYCEDC
The master plan accommodates
approximately 12,000
affordable homes, more than
Stuyvesant Town and Peter
Cooper Village combined. All
of the homes will be affordable
and restricted to incomes
that reflect the most pressing
needs of Queens, with 6,000
units for very low-income New
Yorkers. All rental units will
be rent-stabilized, according
to the NYCEDC.
The remaining 6,000 homes
would create affordable homeownership
TIMESLEDGER | 2 QNS.COM | MARCH 6-12, 2020
opportunities
to help families build wealth
through a 21st century financing
mechanism based upon
the Mitchell-Lama Housing
Program, which for decades
has created opportunity for
many New Yorkers.
The cost of the deck will be
around $14.4 billion dollars.
Grossman Meagher would not
speculate on the exact cost
of the residential component
other than to say it would be
“regular building costs that
you see in New York City these
days,” but he said the “scale of
the building will make sense.”
The towers close to Long
Island City would be 30 to 50
stories high and residential
buildings approaching Sunnyside
Gardens would be midrise
to low-rise.
Before the decking and developing
proceed, infrastructure
such as the Sunnyside
Station will come first.
“That’s something communities
in western Queens
and their elected officials have
been calling for and that’s why
we decided to make that a priority,”
Grossman Meagher
said. “We believe the station
should come first. It will be
built at the western edge of
the yard on the east side of the
Queens Boulevard Bridge and
it will be served by the Long
Island Rail Road and eventually
Metro North when service
begins to Penn Station. New
Jersey Transit and Amtrak
could also factor in connecting
western Queens to every
part of the greater New York
City region and major cities of
the northeast.”
Congresswoman Carolyn
Maloney has been an advocate
for years for a transit hub near
the East Side Access project.
“I am encouraged that
the Master Plan includes the
Sunnyside Station in its first
phase,” Maloney said.
There is also planning for
a new Rapid Bus Line connecting
Queens with Midtown
Manhattan, as well as
the potential for a future new
Queens subway line to connect
New Yorkers with existing and
emerging economic centers,
fueling job growth and access
to opportunity, according the
NYCEDC.
“It is exciting to see the release
of this framework plan
for Sunnyside Yard, the largest
and best located opportunity
to holistically address
both the existing community
needs and future growth in
western Queens and the city,”
LIC Partnership President
Elizabeth Lusskin, co-chair of
the Sunnyside Yard Steering
Committee, said. “The preliminary
framework released
today responds to those priorities,
proposing a new rail
hub to support a fast growing
western Queens and the area’s
transit network, more than 60
acres of new public open space,
and 100% affordable housing,
a range of jobs and resilient
planning. As we move into the
next phase of the project, community
input will continue to
be the key to ensuring Sunnyside
Yard lives up to its potential
and meets the diverse and
growing needs of the people
and businesses based here.”
Maloney will be watching
how the planning process proceeds.
“While I am initially encouraged
by the proposal for
the Sunnyside Yard Master
Plan governance entity, it is
necessary that this continues
to be a community driven
process and I will not support
plans that abandon this approach,”
Maloney said. “I will
continue to be a fierce advocate
for an open dialogue that
ensures none of our neighborhood’s
voices are left out.”
To read the Sunnyside
Yard Master Plan, visit the
NYCEDC’s website.
Reach reporter Bill Parry by
e-mail at bparry@schnepsmedia.
com or by phone at (718)
260–4538.
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